ʽIllut

Edna Dalali-Amos

03/12/2017

Final Report

In January 2016, a salvage excavation was conducted in the village of ʽIllut (Permit No. A-7866; map ref. 224524/736080), prior to the construction of a new residential building. The excavation, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was directed by E. Dalali-Amos (field photography), with the assistance of Y. Yaʽaqobi (administration), K. Covello-Paran (scientific guidance), M. Shemer (flint artifacts) and laborers from Kafr Manda.

The excavation area (4 × 6 m; Fig. 1) extended along a streambed at the foot of Mount Baharan, c. 300 m north of the village mosque. Building remains dating from the Hellenistic to the Ottoman periods and potsherds from Middle Bronze Age II and the Iron Age were exposed in two previous excavations carried out in the ancient part of the village, c. 250–300 m southeast of the current area (Dalali-Amos 2009; Shalev 2016). Evidence of mining and preliminary knapping of flint implements from the Middle Paleolithic period was discovered c. 700 m northeast of the area (Permit No. A-7478). An extensive knapping site dating to the Middle Paleolithic period was exposed c. 2 km northeast of the excavation area (Yaroshevich 2016).

The area was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.7 m, exposing hard, fractured limestone outcrops overlain with firm clay soil (Fig. 2). Several flint artifacts produced using Levallois technique (Fig. 3), characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic period (250,000–45,000 YBP), were discovered on the bedrock surface. These flint items are extremely abraded, and it therefore seems that they were not produced at the site but eroded here.

The excavation area was apparently located outside of ancient ʽIllut, on the fringes of an extensive area of hard, fractured limestone bedrock, used as a raw material in the production of flint tools in the Middle Paleolithic period. Parts of this limestone bedrock were also discovered in the excavations northeast of the current area.